"23.—We now begin to approach to land. At eight o'clock two Teriffa (Barbary) boats came out after us, they fired at us which we returned as merrily. They were glad to get away as well as they could. We stood after one, but it is almost impossible to come up with the piratical dogs.

"Dec.—10.... In the morning we heard a firing and looked out in the Gut and there was a snow attacked by 3 of the piratical Teriffa boats. Two cutters in the Government service soon got under sail, 3 men-of-war that lay in the road manned their barges and sent them out, as did a privateer. We could now perceive her (the snow) to have struck, but they soon retook her. She had only four swivels and six or eight men.... They got some prisoners (of the pirates) but how many I cannot learn, which it is to be hoped will meet with their just reward which I think would be nothing short of hanging."

Tales of the resourcefulness of the foremast hands on the colonial vessels are of special interest here. As an example, consider that of the brig Sally, which turned bottom up while on her way from Philadelphia to Santo Domingo, on August 8, 1765. Six of the crew who were on deck saved themselves at first by clinging to such wreckage as floated beside the hull, and then, when the squall was over, climbed to the upturned keel. Then, to procure food and drink, they cut the wreath (a flat bar of iron encircling the mainmast head) from its place, using their jackknives, it may be supposed, and with that as a tool made a hole through the bottom of the hulk. It took six days of continuous labor, watch and watch, of course, but they succeeded, and got out a barrel of bottled beer and another of salt pork. During the six days of work they subsisted without water, and with no other food than the barnacles on the planking. Moreover, they built a platform of staves and shingles upon the sloping bottom of the hull, upon which they could sleep without danger of rolling into the sea. In this fashion they lived until September 1, twenty-three days, when they were rescued.

Of the lost rudders that were replaced with pieces of spare spars bound together with rope, and the small boats made by castaways who had nothing but barrel hoops and staves with canvas for planking, no more than mention need be made.

In the log of the sloop Adventure, Captain Francis Boardman, during a West India voyage, in 1774, are found the following entries:—

"This Morning I Drempt that 2 of my upper teeth and one Lower Dropt out and another Next the Lower one wore away as thin as a wafer and Sundry other fritful Dreams. What will be the Event of it I can't tell."

"this Blot I found the 17th. I can't tell, but Something Very bad is going to hapen me this Voyage. I am afeard but God onley Noes What may hapen on board the Sloop Adventure—the first Voyage of being Master."

There were terrors of the sea of which the masters were more "afeard" than they were of the "Teriffa" pirates, but, in spite of all, they held fast tack and sheet, continued on the course, and finally told in the log-book—at least Captain Boardman did—just what came after the dire portents. On arriving off Boston, Boardman wrote:—

"The End of this Voyage for wich I am very thankful on Acct. of a Grate Deal of Trouble by a bad mate. His name is William Robson of Salem. He was drunk most part of the voyage."

The Captain Richard Derby mentioned above was one of several generations of Salem Derbys that followed the sea with success. A letter written by him while at Gibraltar, in 1758, gives a good idea of the state of trade at that time:—

"I wrote you the 1st instant by way of Cadiz and Lisbon; since which I have landed my white sugar and sold it for $17½ per cwt., and my tar I have sold at $8½ per bbl. I have not as yet sold any of my fish, nor at present does there appear to be any buyer for it; but as it is in very good order, and no fear of its spoiling, I intend to keep it a little longer. I am in hopes that this Levanter will bring down a buyer for it. I hope to get $12 for my brown sugar. We have this day had the Sallie delivered up to us, and intend to sell her for the most she will fetch; as to sending her to the West Indies, I am sure if she was loaded for St. Eustia, she would be seized by the privateers before she got out of the road, and having no papers but a pass, would be sufficient to condemn her in the West Indies, if she should be taken by an English cruiser. I have bought 140 casks of claret, at $10 per cask, which I intend to bring home with me. I have written Alicant for 500 dozen handkerchiefs, if they can be delivered for $4 current per dozen. My cargo home I intend shall be 140 casks of claret, 20 butts of Mercil wine, 500 casks of raisins, some soap, and all the small handkerchiefs I can get."

By way of illustrating the dangers of losses from assaults by armed vessels under the English flag, it should be told that in 1759 a Salem schooner named the Three Brothers was overhauled by an English privateer that took away such specie from her as was found on board, and then sent her to one of the West India Islands "to be robbed again by a court of admiralty," as the senior Derby, her owner, wrote. In 1672 another Derby vessel was captured by a Frenchman who took a bond of, and released, her. The old captain sent a cartel in due course to redeem the bond, but a British warship seized her on the charge that she was bound to a port of the enemy. The court in England acquitted the cartel, but in the meantime the owner of the vessel had been put to a great expense unnecessarily, and he had no redress.

Richard Derby mentioned above bought a French prize of 300 tons at Gibraltar, loaded her with wine, and sent her under Captain George Crowninshield to the West Indies, where her cargo was sold to good advantage, and sugar purchased. With this she headed away for Leghorn, but was taken by an English privateer on the plea that she had no register. As a matter of fact the voyage was entirely lawful; she had no register, but being a purchased prize, she did not need one until she should be able to go to an English port. Nevertheless, when the vessel was taken before the court in the Bahamas, she was at once condemned. It was sheer robbery. The records of that court showed that, of 200 ships that had been brought in, the only ones escaping condemnation were a few belonging to owners who had been willing to pay the judge a higher price than the privateers were. The governor of the colony as well as this judge had gone to their posts poor, but in a few years they retired worth fortunes of £30,000 each.

The Derby vessels were seized in each case on the charge that they had violated one or another section of the navigation laws. The navigation laws had at last begun to injure the shipping of the colonial owners. A remarkable change had taken place in the condition of affairs. What had happened, and through what agencies had the change come?

A small space only is needed for a statement of the important facts, but the reader is reminded that here, as in the case of slavery, it is difficult to get the right point of view. The eighteenth-century state of morality, not that of the twentieth, prevailed.

From the beginning of the eighteenth century until well past the middle, England was constantly at war with France and Spain in spite of treaties that were made from time to time to provide for peace. There was never a day from 1700 to 1763 when the ships of either nation were free to sail the seas unmolested. It was the period during which Lord Clive fought the battles of his country in the East Indies, and when, in America, the frontiersman never saw the sun set without a well-grounded fear that the night would bring bloodthirsty and fiendishly cruel enemies prowling around his cabin. According to the documents that remain, these long wars were seemingly no more than disputes over boundaries (neighborhood quarrels over line fences), or efforts to avenge some such personal injury as that when Captain Jenkins had his ear cut off by the Spaniards while sailing near the coast of Cuba. But as seen now, each seemingly petty quarrel was but a feature of a prolonged struggle between races for the commercial control of the New World.

"Shall half the World be England's for industrial purposes, ... or shall it be Spain's for arrogant-torpid, sham-devotional purposes contrary to every Law?" is the way Carlyle put the question in his history of Frederick the Great, and he adds: "The incalculable Yankee Nation itself, biggest Phenomenon (once thought beautifullest) of these Ages,—this too ... lay involved."

In the middle of the century, while the prolonged struggle was culminating, privateering as a method of warfare reached its zenith. The Thurots and De Cocks of France and the Wrights of England swarmed over the seas, gathering fortune and a sort of fame not soon to be forgotten. They captured thousands of ships—literally, and if the truth be told, the French got more ships than the Wrights did. But during the period preceding the declaration of open war in 1756 the English privateers were alone especially active and successful. They brought in 300 ships manned by 10,000 men, and the ships were confiscated and the men imprisoned.

Still more important to this story, however, is the fact that many Dutch as well as French ships were looted by the English. While the assaults upon the French were justified because they avenged similar assaults made by French privateers, and because enough French sailors to man a fleet of battleships were thereby sequestered, there was no such excuse for looting the Dutch. Nevertheless, by the real standards of international law of that century (not the avowed standards), these captures were justified on the ground of necessity in connection with the end for which the war was waged with such "fierce, deep-breathed doggedness"—commercial supremacy. For when war was raging, the ships of neutral nations were permitted by ordinary international usage to carry on their commercial operations unmolested. The Dutch, being neutrals, gained rapidly in the carrying trade of the world. They even had hope that they might attain the proud position they had occupied in the early part of the seventeenth century. The situation looked ominous to the English. If they were to retain the supremacy which good fighting in Cromwell's time had given them, it was absolutely necessary to destroy, or at least check, in some way, the growing prosperity of the Dutch. It was to this end that English privateers (even fishermen in open boats, armed with clubs) were encouraged in looting Dutch merchantmen. To give color of law to this form of piracy, the "Rule of 1756" was provided. Under this rule, which was merely a dictum of the English crown, neutral ships were forbidden to enter any trade in time of war from which they were commonly excluded in time of peace. For example, the Dutch were excluded from the trade between France and the French colonies in time of peace; when war was declared, the French were glad to have Dutch ships in the trade, but England declared she would confiscate every Dutch ship found in it.

With these facts in mind,—remembering especially that in the state of civilization then prevailing, some forms of piracy were justified by expediency,—recall the feeling with which an influential part of the people of England were coming to regard the colonies.

"How much I despise them!" wrote Lord Bellomont, in 1700, when some New England merchants objected to his seizure, confessedly contrary to law, of a cargo of timber. In 1724 the master ship-builders of the Thames united in a formal complaint to the king, in which they said, truthfully, that their trade was depressed and their workmen were emigrating because of the competition of the New England yards. Nor were the ship-builders the only ones in England who were depressed by American competition. The books of Sir Josiah Child were, perhaps, no longer read, but his warnings were coming to be heeded more and more, and the contempt which Lord Bellomont had expressed was well-nigh universal among the nobility.

As the reader remembers, the petition of the Thames ship-builders was not granted. As late as 1739 Walpole said:—

"It has been a maxim with me to encourage the trade of the American colonies in the utmost latitude. Nay, it has been necessary to pass over some irregularities."

That was a most important statement. In 1739 Walpole encouraged the trade of the Americans in the utmost latitude. With inconsiderable exceptions as to time and conditions, the Americans had been, in fact, encouraged in the utmost latitude during nearly 100 years. Even a tax laid on foreign molasses, at the request of the English West Indies, in 1733, had been as dead as the navigation laws of Charles II.

But when the privateers of England were loosed to prey upon neutral ships as well as on those of the enemy, the navigation laws were suddenly revived. The privateers found, in the colonial evasions of these laws, golden opportunities to secure plunder, for colonial ships were constantly evading the laws, and the penalty for doing so was confiscation in favor of the informer. Naturally the English privateers seized the colony ships all the more eagerly because of England's growing jealousy of American shipping. The rôle of these piratical privateers as guardians of the law was supported by courts of admiralty which were composed of judges who received fees that were increased by every condemnation.

For the sake of emphasis let the facts be repeated. After a period of nearly 100 years, during which such leaders as Walpole had "encouraged" American ship-owners "in the utmost latitude," a horde of pirates and corrupt judges resurrected the law; and when a valuable prize was in question, they even disregarded the law they pleaded, as well as justice, to condemn her. And there was no redress.

Of the acts of the British government in connection with the Stamp Act, the duty on tea, and the other efforts to tax the American colonists contrary to their constitutional rights as British citizens, nothing need be said here except to remind the reader that ships of the royal navy were commissioned as revenue cutters and stationed on the American coast (1764), from Casco Bay to Cape Henlopen.

To illustrate the conditions that prevailed thereafter until the War of the Revolution, here is a brief account of the events in Rhode Island waters that led to the destruction of the British naval revenue cutter Gaspé.

The schooner St. John, Lieutenant Hill commanding, was the first of the naval fleet stationed in Rhode Island waters. It was the duty of Lieutenant Hill to examine every vessel trading in those waters to learn whether she were violating the laws. A brig that had discharged cargo at Howland's Ferry was suspected of being a smuggler, but she was not molested until she had gone to sea. Then she was followed, brought back, and found to be entirely innocent. If examined before sailing, no injury to her owners would have resulted, but to bring her back when well under way, and that, too, at the whim of a supercilious naval officer, not only caused loss but roused indignation. A mob of Newport people gathered to attack the schooner, but they were prevented doing so by the arrival of another man-o'-war in the harbor.

While the people were yet fretted by the needless interference with the brig, the man-o'-war Maidstone came to port, and began impressing seamen from the merchant ships in the bay, and finally took the entire crew from a ship just home from the year-long voyage to the coast of Africa. It seems impossible, now, that a naval officer should be guilty of such needless cruelty as taking men under such circumstances, but the truth is that the naval officers of that period found pleasure in cruelty. It was because of inhumanity—the harshness with which men were treated in the navy—that impressment was necessary. The friends and relatives of the impressed seamen were unable to obtain redress, but they expressed their feelings by burning one of the Maidstone's small boats.

In 1769 Captain William Reid, commanding the war-sloop Liberty, seized a merchant brig on Long Island Sound and brought her to Newport, where, although it was found that she was not, and had not been, violating the law in any way, she was held for several days. And when the captain of the brig went to the Liberty in an effort to secure release, and, on failing, expressed his indignation in sailor language, a number of muskets were fired at him. To avenge this indignity, a mob boarded the Liberty that night, cut away her mast, threw her guns overboard, and when she drifted ashore on Goat Island, burned her.

Finally the Gaspé, commanded by Lieutenant William Dudingston, came to the bay. Dudingston thought that every innocent colonial vessel in those waters ought to be subjected to every inconvenience rather than let one smuggler escape. In fact, the naval officers on the coast had all come to the opinion that all colonists were criminals, as well as of the lowest class of people in the social scale, and that it was a duty to inflict punishment upon them whenever possible.

In this frame of mind Dudingston stopped everything afloat, including the open boats carrying farm produce across the bay; threw here and there the cargoes, regardless of the losses thus created; looted some of the produce, and finally seized a sloop (Fortune), carrying twelve hogsheads of rum, and sent her to the Court of Admiralty at Boston, although the law expressly provided that vessels seized in Rhode Island waters should be tried by the Rhode Island court.

"I was not ignorant of the statute to the contrary," wrote Dudingston to Admiral Montegue. He violated the law because he supposed the Massachusetts court would be more likely to condemn the sloop. The zeal of the lieutenant was highly commended by the admiral.

Having thus roused the indignation of every American living in the region, Dudingston went in chase of the packet sloop Hannah, in her passage from Newport to Providence, on the memorable 8th of June, 1772. The Hannah was called a packet because she plied regularly on one route. She had fully complied with the laws before leaving Newport, but Dudingston stopped everything, as said, and he now tried to bring-to the Hannah, but Captain Lindsey, commanding her, held his course. She had sailed at noon with a fair tide, but Lindsey knew that she would have the tide against her for two hours, at best, and he was not going to spoil the passage by stopping, and thus losing what tide was coming his way. Indignant at this lack of respect for one of the king's naval officers, Lieutenant Dudingston made all sail in chase, and followed the Hannah until she tacked across what was called Namquit (now Gaspee) point, when, in trying to follow her, the Gaspé grounded.

When Captain Lindsey told his story in Providence, a drummer paraded the streets, gathering recruits, and enough men assembled to fill eight "long boats," the largest size of boat carried by merchant ships. Though these men were going to attack a naval vessel armed with cannon, they were armed with but few weapons better than clubs and paving-stones. Having disguised themselves in the garb of Indians, they rowed with muffled oars to the stranded schooner, shot down the lieutenant with one of the few muskets carried, clubbed the rest of the crew into submission, and then burned the schooner.

The owner of the Hannah, who instigated this attack upon the king's vessel, was Captain John Brown, the wealthiest merchant in Providence. The leader of the expedition was Captain Abraham Whipple, who, as a privateer, had taken a million dollars' worth of prizes during the wars with France and Spain. The whole mob, for a mob it was in the eyes of the law, were representative citizens not only of Rhode Island but of all the seafaring people of the colonies. The time had come when Americans would, in defence of Justice, do more than evade an unjust law; in burning the Gaspé they were, as Lord Dartmouth declared, "levying war against the king."

CHAPTER V
MERCHANTMEN IN BATTLE ARRAY

SOME of the most stirring tales in the history of the American merchant marine are those of the battles of men who, like Captain Jonathan Haraden, of Salem, commanded armed merchantmen during the War of the Revolution. These stories are of special interest here because they portray one side of the character of the American sailors as developed by the peculiar conditions where forest life and sea life met at the surf-line. But before giving any of these tales, it seems necessary to describe briefly the peculiarities of the ships in use in the colonies during the eighteenth century.

While the dictionaries define, fairly well, all sorts of sea terms, it seems worth noting here that a ship, in the earliest days of the colonies, had three masts, two of which were fitted with yards to spread four-sided sails across the hull, while the third carried a long, slender yard that spread a lateen sail fore and aft. Moreover, a square sail was spread by a yard that hung beneath the end of the bowsprit. Because the lateen sail was difficult to handle, and the one on the spritsail-yard dipped into the water, both were soon abolished on the American ships. American sailors were high-priced, economy was necessary, and rigs that reduced the number of men needed were adopted perforce.

The ketch was another rig that did not last long. A ketch had one mast amidships, with yards crossed upon it, and another smaller mast well aft, upon which yards were also crossed, though sometimes a fore-and-aft sail was found there. It was, doubtless, the worst rig ever seen in American waters.

The snow was a modified brig. She had two masts with yards crossed as in a ship, and in addition had a slender mast close abaft the main—a sort of spencer-mast upon which a fore-and-aft sail was set. This style of rig lasted much longer than its name, though that persisted until the nineteenth century.

The most popular rig, during the first hundred years of the colonies, was the sloop, and it can still be seen on oyster boats, brick carriers, and yachts. No other rig will give a hull as great speed, in proportion to the canvas, as this one, and yet the rig can be managed by few men, provided they know their work, and are vigilant. Long coasting voyages were made with sloops carrying forty tons of cargo, and no more than four men. Voyages to the West Indies were made in larger sloops with six men, while oversea voyages were accomplished with one or two more.

In 1713 a contemplation of the advantages of the sloop rig led Captain Andrew Robinson, of Gloucester, Mass., to build a hull, somewhat larger than the ordinary sloop of the day, and place in it two masts, each of which carried the sloop rig. If rigged as a sloop, the one sail would need to be so large that it would be difficult to handle. By dividing the canvas between two sails of the same form, a great enough spread for speed would be obtained, and yet neither sail would be larger than the single one on a smaller hull. The sails were probably stretched before this vessel was launched, and one may believe that the novelty of the rig drew a large crowd to the launching. Beyond doubt, too, everybody cheered as the hull took the water, and one enthusiast shouted,—

"Oh, how she scoons!"

"Scoon" referred to the light and swift motion of the hull as it seemed to glide over, rather than plough through, the water, but Captain Robinson, who had been wondering what he would name the curious rig, seized upon the word "scoon" and said, "A scooner let her be!"

Perhaps the most important event in the shipyards of America, previous to the launching of Fulton's steamer, was the invention of the schooner. For under this rig a hull of twice the capacity of an ordinary sloop could be handled with no, or but a small, increase in the number of men. Moreover, the cost of the rig was less than that of any other for a hull of similar size. In short, a schooner gave her owner more ton-miles of work than any other kind of vessel for each dollar of expense. Schooners were soon used almost exclusively in the cod-fishery on the banks. They rapidly made their way into the coasting trade, where they gathered cargoes for the ships used in the export trade, and served to strengthen the slender cords binding one part of the country to the other. They even went on foreign voyages with great success—as they might do now, if only American owners would take what lies before them.

With the growth of American shipping it was inevitable that American sailors should go privateering. The love of adventure was born into the people who lived where salt spray gave a tang to the odors of a pine forest. Armed ships from Boston hunted Dutch merchantmen as long as the Hudson region was called New Amsterdam. American sailors ate broiled rawhide with Morgan on the banks of the Chagres River. Kidd came from London to New York seeking sailors born in the Highlands of the Hudson, because they were, of all men in the world, best fitted by experience and natural inclination for the work he had in hand. Franklin at one time expressed the hope that the American coast would never shelter such hosts as were found in Algiers and Tripoli, and the thought was founded on his knowledge of the eager determination to get on in life, at all hazards, which the conditions of life in America had generated.

The most important era in the apprenticeship of the colonial merchantmen was that passed in fighting the French and Spanish during England's long struggle for commercial supremacy in the eighteenth century, a period during which New York alone commissioned 48 vessels, carrying 675 guns and 5530 men. As affording interesting views of the work done by the American seamen at that time, consider some of the incidents of the siege of Louisburg, for while the siege was a land contest, it was carried on by men the majority of whom, perhaps, were sailors, and the incidents to be recalled were, at any rate, peculiarly characteristic of the New England foremast hand.

The armed ships numbered thirteen, and ninety merchantmen were chartered to carry the men. The number of ships then owned in the colonies at that time is nowhere stated, but it was not difficult to gather this fleet in New England.

Although the heavy masonry forts at Louisburg mounted 42-pounders, the heaviest guns the fleet carried were 22-pounders; but 42-pounder shot were cast for the expedition, and taken along, because every man in the fleet was entirely confident that 42-pounders would soon be captured from the enemy.

Having landed about two miles from the main fortification (April 30, 1745), one William Vaughan, "a youth of restless and impetuous activity," led 400 men "to the hills near the town and saluted it with three cheers." On May 2 this same impetuous youth, while wandering around with a squad of twelve men and boys, reached a number of unguarded storehouses belonging to the enemy. They were so far from the main scene of activity of the colonists that the French, apparently, had not thought it worth while to guard them. Vaughan set them on fire, and the conflagration frightened the soldiers in a large detached fort so much that they fled. A little later Vaughan and his gang took possession of the abandoned fort, and while a boy of eighteen years climbed the flagstaff and spread a red coat to the breeze in place of a flag, another one ran to the colonial general (Pepperrell) with this message from Vaughan:—

"May it please your Honour to be informed that by the grace of God and the courage of thirteen men, I entered the Royal Battery about 9 o'clock, and am waiting for a reinforcement and a flag."

The 42-pounders for which shot had been cast in Boston were secured—twenty-eight of them, besides two 18-pounders.

When the siege guns were landed from the transports, and an effort was made to take them forward across a wide swamp, in order to mount them where they would reach the town, they sank out of sight in the mud. Thereupon the men made a broad-runner sled for each gun, harnessed themselves to the sleds, and waded across the swamp, dragging the guns after them. That feat has excited the admiration of all historians who have written about it. But these men had built ships a mile from the water—back in the woods—and, when each was ready for the sea had dragged it to the beach with many yoke of oxen; dragging cannon across the swamp was a small matter in their estimation.

A trained engineer wanted them to advance upon the big fort of the enemy in the usual scientific manner—by digging parallels, one after another, and covering every step of the advance with earthworks. The proposal made them laugh. Taking advantage of a foggy night, they went forward, rolling sugar hogsheads, brought for the purpose, before them, until they arrived at the most advanced point desirable, and there they up-ended the hogsheads, filled them with dirt, mounted their siege guns (including 42-pounders taken from the royal fort), and opened fire.

Meanwhile they were without tents; their clothing and shoes wore out under the excessive abrading of their work; they were soaked by cold rains, but shelters of evergreen boughs were erected, and "while the cannon bellowed in front ... the men raced, wrestled, pitched quoits, fired at marks," and "ran after the French cannon balls that sometimes fell in the camp" where "frolic and confusion reigned" perpetually.

The capture of Louisburg had small effect upon the country, but the work of the besiegers, rightly seen, was of the most important ever done in the colonies. Throughout the siege they were inspired by the idea that "the All of Things is an infinite conjugation of the verb To Do"; they took hold of each task with hearty good-will, and were irrepressible; their rude disregard for convention gave opportunity to their resourcefulness, and contributed to the evolution of military science. And lessons learned before Louisburg were applied at Bunker Hill, and elsewhere, during the Revolution.

Among the heroes of the privateer ships of the Revolution we may well recall Captain Jonathan Haraden, as a type. In 1780 he sailed from Salem in the 180-ton ship Pickering, armed with fourteen 6-pounders, manned by about fifty men, all told, bound to Bilboa with a cargo of sugar. At this period of the war the British, taught by experience, had sent out fleets of frigates and sloops of war, besides many brigs, cutters, and privateers of large size in order to suppress the armed ships of the "rebels." On the way across, Haraden met a heavy cutter and beat her off. While reaching across the Bay of Biscay, one night, he overhauled a ship the lookouts of which appeared to be asleep; for there was no stir upon her deck until Haraden hailed and ordered her to surrender, saying that his ship was an American frigate and he intended firing a broadside immediately. The sleepy captain obeyed the order. It was then learned that she was a privateer much superior to the Pickering in the number of guns and of men. On arriving off Bilboa a big armed ship was seen coming out, and the captured captain told Haraden she was the privateer Achilles, mounting forty-two guns and manned by 140 men.

"I shan't run from her," said Haraden, quietly.

The Achilles took possession of the privateer captured in the Bay of Biscay, but because it was a calm night, and the Pickering would be unable to escape, the captain of the Achilles determined to wait until morning before attacking. On seeing this, Haraden arranged a proper lookout and then went to sleep.

At dawn, when the Achilles came down ready for battle, the Pickering was lying so far inshore that a throng of people, supposed to number 100,000, gathered on the hills to watch the contest, and they found the spectacle worth the trouble taken. Calling his men to the mast, Haraden assured them that they would win in spite of the greater force of the enemy, and then ordered them to "Take particular aim at the white boot top."

Inspired by the air of confidence with which the captain had addressed them, the men returned to quarters. Their ship was loaded down so far in the water that she "appeared little larger than a long boat" when the Achilles ranged alongside, but, as Captain Haraden had foreseen, the difference in height gave him a decisive advantage.

The Achilles, with her great battery and numerous crew, opened a fire that seemed overwhelming. But at that time (and for years afterward) English sailors relied upon speed of fire only to win their battles; the guns of the Achilles were discharged without aiming, and because the gun deck was far above the water, nearly every shot passed over the Pickering. But the American gunners were half sailor, half backwoodsmen; they took particular aim at the white boot top of the Achilles, and drove so many shot through her side near the water-line that, after about three hours of fighting, the British captain found that he would have to haul off or sink. He decided to fly. Then, on seeing the British sailors running to the braces to swing the yards, Haraden ordered his gunners to load with crowbars, hoping to cut the rigging of the Achilles with these curious projectiles, and thus keep her from running away; but "she had a mainsail as large as a ship of the line," and when that sail began to draw she escaped.

As the Pickering and her recaptured prize came to anchor in the bay, the enthusiastic spectators of the battle flocked off in such numbers that at one time it would have been possible to build with the boats around her a pontoon bridge reaching from ship to shore.

When Captain William Gray was a lieutenant on the privateer Jack, she was attacked by one of the enemy of such superior force that she was soon disabled. Thereupon the enemy came alongside and tried to board. In heading his men in repelling the attack, Gray was struck by a bayoneted musket which had been pitchpoled at him. The bayonet pinned him fast to a gun carriage so that he was unable to get away, but after one of his men had withdrawn the bayonet, he again attacked the boarders and they were repelled.

When Captain John Manly commanded the privateer Jason, of Boston, he was chased by a British frigate into a roadstead near the Isle of Shoals. He would have been captured there but for a friendly squall which, while it dismasted him, drove away the frigate. At this, however, Manly's troubles began. He had previously lost the privateer Cumberland, and his crew decided that the dismasting was clear proof that he was unlucky. A mutiny followed, but Manly, snatching a cutlass from one of the crew, attacked the mutineers single-handed, and after cutting down two of them, set the remainder at work rerigging the ship; and he kept them at it until she was ready for sea thirty-six hours later. Finally, he went to Sandy Hook and captured two big privateers fresh from that port and very valuable.

As noted in the Story of the New England Whalers, there is abundant reason for saying that "out of the 1700 men who had manned Nantucket whalers before the war, some hundreds shipped on the privateers. They took kindly to a calling in which there was such a strong element of chance. The hope of good luck was strong within them." When an American privateer was captured by the enemy, they separated the Nantucket men from the remainder of the crew, and then by bribery on the one hand, and starvation and other kinds of ill treatment, on the other, they forced as many as possible into the English whaleships.

Many more tales might be related, but the facts here given show well enough that the men who were at once woodsmen, ship-builders, fishermen, and sailors could also fight. It is especially notable that they could usually think calmly and decide swiftly, as Haraden did. The conditions under which the American seamen of the period had been reared had made them, as so frequently pointed out herein, at once resourceful, enterprising, persistent, and unafraid.

The records of the privateers are so few in number that only imperfect estimates can be made of the number and force of the fleet. The Continental Congress bonded 1699 privateers during the war, but since many ships were bonded more than once, some under different names, it is not possible to say how many individual ships were thus represented. Further than that the colonies commissioned many vessels that had no commission from the Congress. Hale, in Winsor's History of America, says that Massachusetts owned 600 privateers. Salem alone owned 158. More than 200 were owned in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. The fleets of the Delaware, the Chesapeake, and of Charleston were considerable. Certainly more than 1000 armed ships were sent to sea by American owners to seize the merchantmen of the enemy. The fishing smack Wasp, carrying 9 men and no cannon, was, perhaps, the weakest;^[3] the Deane, carrying 30 cannon and 210 men, was the most powerful. There were 40 American privateers of the force of 20 guns and 100 men or larger.

American histories have, almost without exception, glorified these privateers. They note that Dodsley's Register for 1778 recorded the capture of 733 British ships by American cruisers, of which 559 were brought into port. What these prizes sold for is not recorded, but it appears that the British loss was estimated at £2,600,000. Gomer Williams, in his history of the Liverpool privateers, says that the War of the Revolution put an entire stop to the commercial progress of that port. It was the venturesome American privateer who haunted the Irish channel until the Dublin linen fleet sailed under convoy to Chester, that thus injured Liverpool. According to Troughton, another Liverpool historian, "the manners of the common people" of the town "made a retrogression towards barbarism." Mr. Hale estimates that 3000 British ships were captured, and that the losses crippled the commercial prosperity of England severely.

On the other hand, however, while the American cruisers were capturing the 773 British ships, the British cruisers captured and sent into port 904 American ships, which brought the captors £2000 each on the average. The losses of the American owners were, of course, much larger. Worse yet, the American ships were all eventually driven from the seas, save only as a few of the largest and most powerful were able to dodge and outsail the frigates and sloops-of-war which the British sent in pursuit of them. Haraden himself, though he captured more than a thousand guns from the enemy, was at last caught at St. Eustatia by Admiral Rodney's fleet.

If the accounts of gains and losses could be posted ledger fashion, the struck balance would show that while the captured goods^[4] were at times almost the only resource of the colonists needing goods of foreign manufacture, and while, too, a few individuals were enriched, the losses of the ship merchants as a class, and of the country, far outweighed the gains. American independence was not won, as so often claimed, by the privateers; it was not even forwarded.

There was a further loss, which, though it cannot be measured, was real. There is abundant evidence to show that the successes of the few made gamblers, and even thieves, of many merchants. While two frigates were on the stocks in Rhode Island, the timber belonging to the government was stolen for use in privateers. Still another evil influence is found in the fact that the magnified stories of privateer work made the people believe that the greed of the merchants would serve to defend the new-born nation from foreign aggression better than a navy could do it. And not until after the War of 1812 was brought upon us was the miserable delusion dispelled.

In two respects only did the privateers serve the American merchant marine well: they gave some thousands of individual seamen increased ability to handle ships under difficult conditions, and they improved the speed of the whole fleet.

Captain Elias Hasket Derby, of Salem, was perhaps the first American to make a systematic study of ship models with a view of increasing speed. He established a shipyard near his wharf at Salem; with untrammelled mind he made experiments, and eventually he built 4 ships of from 300 to 360 tons' burden, each of which became noted for strength and speed. One of them (the Astræ, a vessel less than 100 feet long), while on her way to the Baltic, made the run from Salem to the Irish coast in eleven days. In 1783 this vessel crossed from Salem to France in 18 days, and she made the passage home in 19.

Only a few ships remained in commission to float the flag of the "new constellation" at the end of the War of the Revolution, but it was a matter of no small significance that these ships were, on the average, far superior to those that had formed the American merchant marine in colonial days. Indeed, they were literally the best merchantmen in the world. And the conditions under which they were to sail, though harrowing to the owners and to all patriotic Americans, were to maintain the standard of the fleet for many years to come.

CHAPTER VI
EARLY ENTERPRISE OF THE UNITED STATES MERCHANT MARINE

WHEN the War of the Revolution came to an end, the territory of the United States extended along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia, and westward over the Appalachian Mountains as far as the Mississippi River. The population, including slaves, numbered no more than 3,500,000. The settlements have usually been considered in groups—those of New England, of the Middle states, of the Southern states, and, last of all, that most interesting group west of the mountains. Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania were the most populous states. Philadelphia, the largest city, boasted a population of 42,520 in the first census year (1790). New York was second, Boston third, Charleston fourth, and Baltimore fifth. Newport and Portsmouth, though small, were yet ports of importance, and so, too, was Salem.

The interests of the different groups of population of the country were then supposed to be in some ways antagonistic. The Southern states produced tobacco, rice, and indigo for export, and had relatively few ships; wanting low freight rates, they expressed, at times later, the fear of combinations between owners of ships living elsewhere, by which rates would be raised. The seeming antagonisms were magnified by the lack of means of intercourse between them. While roads wide enough for vehicles had been cut from town to town near the coast as far south as Virginia, and a few had been opened into the interior along the routes of armies during the war, the most comfortable way of travelling was by water, and ships were the only means for transporting freight, save only as some goods were carried on mules and wagons into the interior—on one route as far as Pittsburg.